


Opus 35

by damascened (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rs_games, Fluff, I mean people do die?, M/M, but not really at all but they do?, fairytales - Freeform, flangst maybe????, um people die but they don't???, yeah it is fluff though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:09:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/damascened
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there existed a beautiful planet of Escheresque architecture (it all goes downhill from there)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opus 35

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the RS Games, the original note I had with it was "It’s fluff where people die. This is why I shouldn't be allowed near a computer." I feel I need to add that (a) the typo in the last line is on purpose, and (b) it was written for the prompt "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...". Yep. I think that is all.

  
  
i   
  
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—"  
  
"Sirius you can't just plagiarise the opening lines from Star Wars."   
  
"I thought you were weak and delirious and wanted me to tell you a story?"   
  
"Well, yes. Go on then."   
  
  
  
ii   
  
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there existed a beautiful planet of Escheresque architecture. The name of the planet has been lost to the ages, and modern historians call it Cassiopeia.   
  
Cassiopeia was said to be at the far edge of the galaxy, orbiting a sun called Rah and beyond contact with the rest of the universe. No one knew it existed beyond the inhabitants; and yet exist it did. Cities reached for the sky, lush forests and jungles grew heavy with exotic fruit and spices; cogs, clocks and wheels keeping every kingdom ticking forward from day to day.   
  
The capital of Cassiopeia was a kingdom known as Al Atan. Al Atan was the biggest, most powerful place in all the land.   
  
However, it was ruled by a vicious king and queen. It was said their name was 'Black', to match the colour of their souls. Their palace was magnificent to behold. Set on the top of a sheer cliff above a verdigris sea, the orchards and gardens stretched to the distant horizon. The palace was blue in colour, such a blue that it was at one time believed to be made of pieces of the sky, whittled down to bricks by the gods. Spires towered high above the world, so high it was not known as they tapered into nothing against the clear sky. Only when it rained was their towering splendidness truly possible to comprehend. It was sometimes known as 'the Invisible Castle'. It seemed impossible such a beautiful place could harbour any evil.   
  
The tallest tower stood right next to the edge of the cliff. It was the bluest blue imaginable, and spiralled high into the clouds. The villagers called it 'The Prince's Tower', as they believed the wicked king and queen had locked their eldest son in there, high above the world with no way out.   
  
  
  
iii  
  
“That’s called ‘purple prose’, you know.”   
  
“I don’t care.”   
  
  
  
iv  
  
One night, in the cold, early hours before dawn, a bright light streaked through the sky and landed in the wild forest bordering on the palace walls. A wildfire blazed for hours before burning itself out. The forest was so thick it made no notable impression from the village in the morning. In fact, no one noticed it at all.   
  
No one but a dark figure, peering through a telescope from a high window.   
  
The Prince had heard legends of ships from space, of course, but he’d never been given cause to believe in them. However, it was clear to him that the streak of light was too large to be a star. It was also clear to the prince that stars were not usually made of burning metal.   
  
He donned a cloak of pure blue and threw a long length of rope from his tower window. He was invisible as the clambered down from the sickening heights and silently crept towards the forest.   
  
He wandered the forest for hours, searching. It was only when the sky had turned gold then royal blue and the first stars started dotting the sky that the ground beneath his feet turned ashen and the forest dark. He walked on in the desolate landscape, wishing he’d thought to bring a lantern as there was no moon to cast a sliver of light and he could not even see his hand when he held it in front of his face. But suddenly, just as he’d lost all hope, the darkness lifted and a warm molten light appeared in the distance.   
The spaceship was still beautiful, even mangled and scared as it was. Scorched metal twisted unnaturally around the edges; grotesque shadows sprang from the meagre light. And to one side, hand holding the lantern, head bowed assessing the damage to what appeared to have previously been an engine, stood a man.   
  
“Hello?” called out the Prince. The man startled and dropped the lantern; the Prince picked it up before it could smash against a particularly gnarled tree root.   
He was fascinating. He was  _different_.   
  
The man from the stars had pale skin with  _freckles_  and a jagged scar running down the left side of his face, barely missing the eye. His hair was a tawny orange colour—  
  
  
  
v  
  
“My hair is not orange. Or tawny, for that matter.”   
  
“Who said the Spaceman was you?”   
  
  
  
vi   
  
He had pale, pale skin with freckles and a jagged scar down the left side of his face that almost cut through his eye. His hair was  _coppery-blonde_ ; his eyes almost the colour of amber. His left arm was steeped in blood, running from a deep cut in his upper arm.   
  
The man backed himself against a tree, eyes wide with fear, but the Prince swept forward and gave him back his lantern. He stepped back and gestured for the man to continue with his examination of the damage.   
  
The man nodded and continued, shooting the Prince curious looks out of the side of his eyes when he thought the other wasn’t looking. The Prince, for his part, sat down on a blackened stump. All was silent.   
  
And then he told the man a story.   
  
It was a strange, complicated tale of another man from the stars. It was about a blue box who was transfigured into a woman and a talking lion far away and metal dragons and a million parallel universes coming together as one. At first, the man appeared to be lost in his own head, barely paying attention. But as the night slipped past he slowly grew more enraptured.   
  
But when the first strand of morning light grew from the horizon, the Prince stopped mid-story, stood and drew his cloak around him.   
  
“Stay,” pleaded the Spaceman.   
  
The Prince shook his head. “I shall return tomorrow,” he promised before returning to his tower.   
  
  
  
vii  
  
“I like Scheherazade.”   
  
“Yeah, I know.”   
  
  
  
viii  
  
It became a ritual; a tradition of sorts. The Prince would wait until the first star appeared in the sky, then slip out of his tower window. He would walk through the forest until he reached the spaceman. The Spaceman would work on his ship and the Prince would tell him his stories, but every dawn when only a star was left in the sky he would leave, a half-finished story and an entranced spaceman behind him.   
  
The seasons bled into one another. It was late summer when the spaceman fell from the sky; Summer turned to Autumn turned to Winter turned to Spring turned to Summer. Twice more round and the ship still wasn’t finished. The Prince grew older, learnt more. His brother was married off to a princess in a nearby kingdom. One night, there was a ball was determine the Prince’s future queen. At the first star, he slipped out of the palace to tell the Spaceman that night’s instalment.   
  
  
  
ix  
  
“But why are they having a ball for the Prince if they locked him away? Weren’t they keeping him in hiding?”   
  
“Don’t ask difficult questions.”   
  
  
  
x   
  
When he returned, it was to the full wrath of his mother. She screamed at him and slapped him, leaving stinging red marks over his face, before locking him in his tower and setting a Hungarian Horntail to guard the outside to ensure he stayed locked away forever.   
  
However, the Prince did not despair, for he was nothing if not resourceful (as well as extremely foolish). He waited until dawn broke (for his plan was risky enough without attempting it in the dark) and waited for the dragon to circle his tower once more, before jumping out of the window and landing on its back.   
  
Hungarian Horntails are known for a great many things, and their temper is one of them. Enraged at the Prince the dragon set about destroying the palace, setting the most powerful palace on Cassiopeia alight, killing all those inside and sending great plumes of dark smoke into the sky.   
  
The dragon flew over the cliff and the Prince knew it was his only chance of getting off. He let go and fell into the verdigris sea. However, the sea is a turbulent and unpredictable force, and the fall was greater than the Prince had thought, and the force of the impact was enough to snap his neck and stop his heart. The currents pushed him down to rest on the ocean floor, where he rested forever.   
  
The Spaceman waited many months for the Prince’s return. He’d finished fixing his ship over a year ago; it was only the Prince’s stories that kept him, and now it looked like he’d never know what happened to Tycho the Brave.   
  
Eventually, heartbroken, the Spacemen left the kingdom of Al Atan. He had to continue on with his life, no matter how hard it was, and how all the stories he would now never hear taunted him. Life would move on.   
  
Yet in Cassiopeia’s atmosphere, the Spaceman had a thought. Rather than continuing on his travels out in the edges of civilisation, he instead went in search of a planet that he had only ever heard of and barely even believed in—The Library.   
  
If he couldn’t have the Prince, he could at least have his stories.   
  
  
  
iix  
  
“So what do you think, Moony?”   
  
“Well despite the glaring plot holes, it was actually...strangely quite nice.”   
  
“I had a sad ending just for you. Because I know you like them.”   
  
“Also you’d run out of ideas for what to do next.”   
  
“Yes, that too.”   
  
“I liked the ending, really. I don’t really see the point of stories if they don’t come around in the end. Because with a sad ending there’s always that last hint of wonderfulness, and it’s wonderful rather than happy and that makes it worthwhile. If your characters get a perfect ending then why have them at all? We read stories to watch people suffer, in a manner of speaking. No-one likes a character who gets to where they’re going too easily. Not story worth telling has a happy ending and so on—Padfoot tell me to shut up I’m babbling.”   
  
“Moony, shut up you’re babbling.” 


End file.
